Sand Castles
by Talicor
Summary: Ah, the mind of a child is a beautiful thing, is it not? ... Or is it? Drifting through the realm of sleep, our true selves are revealed... And not all are quite as strong as one would think.


_Heh... Hey guys! (All my followers and such) Figured I'd publish this little something I had sitting on my hard drive for a while before getting back into the swing of my bigger projects!_

_I present to you **T. Alana M'**s loooooooooooooong overdue birthday fic! I wish I could even HOPE to repay her for the awesome chaper in **The Good Son** (Which I HIGHLY __recommend! Excellent read! Will have you dying of laughter and pure awesome!)_

ANYWAY! ENJOY, AND LET ME KNOW YOUR THOUGHTS IN A REVIEW!

_This is another that was based on an iMessage conversation with another good friend, hence a stylistic difference akin to **Incense.**_

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><p>I hate sand.<p>

Mulling over the coarse substance with boyish hands, my mind churns darkly.

So little time... So much to do to fix this hellhole of a galaxy... Yet time... Just like sand, slips though our fingers. Closing my eyes, I take a deep breath before reopening them, and beginning to sculpt the sand with free fingers.

Continuing towards the darkness, a young man finds himself stepping into another's dreams. Looking around curiously, he fails to quell a shiver, where, the midst of the darkness, he spots a boy playing, shaping sand with his little hands.

Sitting in the sand, I sigh before flopping back into the coarse material.

"Who are you?" The voice reaches me, soft, and almost unspoken.

Timid even, though it comes from one who by all appearances would be the stronger of the two of us.

And I simply shrug.

"Who are you?" I parrot back, continuing to watch the stranger.

"Luke," the young man responds, crouching in the sand next to me as his eyes flit to the sandcastle I had wrought from the harsh sands..

"Why are you here?" I ask at last, turning back to sculpting the magnificent little structure, now as big as me.

There is nothing he can do to me here.

"I dunno," the one known as Luke shrugs, "Thought I sensed something about you."

"About me?" I quirk an eyebrow, meeting his blue gaze with my sulphuric eyes, "What could _possibly_ draw you here?"

"Curiosity mostly. What are you building?"

"A castle," I shrug, standing now to continue sculpting the terraces and spires, "I have to find _something_ to do with all this sand."

In an attempt to seemingly get me to open up to him, Luke reaches into the Force, hovering a large fistful's worth of sand, and sculpting it to resemble a bantha, "Look at this."

"A bantha," I observe dryly, "Force, those things stink."

"Well, yeah," he shrugs with an air of defeat, dropping the sand, "I just thought it was a neat trick."

"The Force is more than a mere _trick_," I respond, creating a particularly beautiful spire, "It is life."

"Yeah, I know," he responds timidly."But that's just a silly game."

I can feel he is unsettled.

"Is it now?" I look up him with amber eyes, my castle complete, "You know... A lot of people consider war to be a 'silly game' too." And with that, I flick a particular spot in my castle, and the sand blackens, turning to ash and crumbling away.

Blinking in visible shock at the destroyed castle, the young Jedi looks to me in alarm, asking again, "Who _are_ you?"

"I'm a person," I answer strongly, looking up at him almost challengingly, "But in here... I have no name."

"Ooooookay…." He releases a slow breath, starting to attempt building in the sand alongside me, "Why don't you make something new?"

I simply shrug, fingers trailing darkness in the sand.

"Everything I build comes crumbling down."

"Still," he attempts, words laced with almost forced happiness, "It's nice to build things."

"I used to think the same thing," I sigh, picking up a fistful of sand, and beginning to sculpt once again, this time it is the beginnings of a certain mask, "Until I built something terrible."

"What did you build?" The newcomer's voice is brokenly soft once again.

_If only you knew…_

"I built a monster," I respond, holding up the sandy, half-sculpted mask, still that of golden sand in my hands.

Not yet stained with darkness.

"But you knocked it down, right?" He asks, gesturing to the pile of sand, "Like you knocked that down?"

"Nothing can knock it down," I answer simply, continuing to sculpt it, defining the harsh lines of the face I am defined by in the real world.

"Why not?" He attempts with innocence, trying to make a castle like I had constructed, to distract from the demonic mask in the sand.

"Because he isn't made of sand," I answer cryptically, eyes lingering on the sculpture of Death's face.

"C'mere," Again, his voice is tinged with a strained happiness as he wraps an arm around my waist, and drags me through the sand to the castle, "Help me with this instead."

"Don't grab me like that." I hiss, pushing away from him in an instinctive fear of being within another's grasp.

_I am a slave enough already… I need no further bonds._

"S-sorry… I didn't think…" Eyes fall on bloody handprints on his tunic, and he springs up almost violently.

Once again, instinct overrules my intelligence, and I hold my arms up defensively, sand turning black at my feet.

_As a slave… Fear is your constant._

"What's going _on?!_" He gasps, eyes cemented on the scarlet and smeared handprints as the darkness reaches the mask I'd sculpted, washing it with a new level of realism.

It doesn't crumble like the rest.

"You grabbed me," I respond flatly, backing toward the mask, yellow eyes never leaving the taller form.

"Yeah," he defends, stepping forward, "But I didn't mean to _upset_ you!"

"You were upset," I point at the bloody handprints, "I am a slave... When someone bigger than you gets upset, you learn to fear."

"I wasn't _angry_," he retorts, voice raising ever so slightly, "I just wanted you to cheer up!"

"You jumped when you saw the blood."

"You would've too!"

At this, I feel a coldness blossom in my chest, eyes cooling to a flat yellow.

"After the first few times you kill, blood tends to lose its scare-factor."

"_You_'ve killed?!" The Jedi looks to me in shock, only seeing the child's face I wear..

Not the monster beneath.

"Plenty of times," I nod, clasping my hands at my back, and continuing to hold his cerulean gaze. "I've been killing for the last thirty years."

"_What_ are you?" He whispers, horror trickling into his tone as he slips back with just the slightest move of his feet.

"People used to treat me like a hero," I begin cryptically, before picking up the mask and meeting its soulless gaze, "Now they see me as a monster."

Eyes naked with trepidation, the one before me continues to watch the form in my hands, praying, for it to fall apart.

As I brush it off, the black sand solidifies into ebon metal, gleaming in my hand. "I told you the monster wasn't made of sand."

It is in that instant, I know he senses the truth in my words.

"_You're_ Vader?!" He gasps, immediately becoming defensive, anticipating death in its most destructive and monstrous form.

"Clever, clever, young Skywalker," I look up from the mask, voice having deepened to that of the vocoder, "So nice to see I didn't have to COMPLETELY spell it out for you."

He struggles now, thinking he can escape the shifting sands.

"Funny thing about visiting someone's mind…" I begin, smirking at his futile attempts, sliding the helmet beneath a youthful arm, "You usually can't leave until the other desires."

"Well, didn't you push me away?" The boy reminds, almost hopefully, at the chance to find some sort of loophole.

"Technicalities," I dismiss, voice a child's once more as I step forward, "Besides, my mind is a sand-trap. No one can leave until I do."

"You are one creepy little kid…"

"I get lonely," I sigh, looking at the ebon mask again, "And when you only have miles of sand, and a monstrous reputation to live with... Things tend to get a little twisted."

"So you trap people in here with you!"

"It's not me who does it," I shake my head, "It's the sand."

"Well, let me go!"

"Get out of the sand," I gesture, "and you can."

"How can I get out of the sand in a desert?!"

"Exactly my point, Luke." I roll my eyes, "Besides, it is not like I will harm you here."

A bark of laughter, and he gestures about, "And why not? Nothing usually stops you from hurting people!"

"You think I'd want to destroy my last sanctuary with the hell of my waking moments?" I pose incredulously.

"I thought you hated it here! I heard you say it!"

"I said I hate sand," I shrug in response, rolling my eyes slightly, "But even in here, surrounded by sand, it is preferable to being awake."

"That's your own fault, though, isn't it?"

"If you count immolation by one I considered a BROTHER," I scoff, skin crackling and charring as if freshly burned from Mustafar, "My fault, then I suppose so."

"Kriff…" He moans at the graphic sigh, looking away from the burning child.

Smiling coldly, I will my flesh back to health, eyes flashing.

"Disturbed? Disgusted, are you, Luke?"

"Why do you show yourself as a child?" He manages, finally daring to meet my yellow orbs once again.

"It was the last time I was ever truly happy, I suppose," I answer, an edge of sadness slipping into my voice as I tuck away the mask again, "Any older, and it brings... Painful memories."

Slowly, and with stifled fear, he steps forward offering a hand, "Is that why you were playing in the sand?"

"It helps distract from the self-hatred," I shrug, clasping my hands over the mask under my arm, still somewhat closed off when it comes to contact.

"Would you like to build something again?" He asks weakly, kneeling in the sand.

As if a child's comforts would work on one so tortured as me.

"To be perfectly honest," I sigh, looking up at him with a yellow eye, "Talking is preferable to any more childish games."

"We can do both," he offers with a previously unseen warmth, starting to build a spire.

Surprised at this development, I slowly find myself kneeling down beside him. Place a hand on the yellow sand, watching numbly as it blackens and turns to ash.

"Can't you?" The Jedi asks, watching the darkness spread from my fingertips.

Poisoning everything in my wake.

"You know what I am," I mumble, withdrawing my hand, leaving a patch of blackness. "The guise of innocence no longer holds the darkness from the sand."

"Come here," a motion of welcoming arms, and a slight smile are offered, "You can guide my hands, if you want."

"You'd get covered in blood," I remind, motioning to the handprints on his white tunic.

The blood of millions.

Shaking his head, the Rebel motions for me to join him once again.

"It's okay."

"No," I shake my head and stand up, "You of all people should not be marked with my burden."

"Come on, you said you wanted some company. I don't care."

"But I DO," I respond, turning away and adding quietly, "I've done enough to my family already…" Clenching a fist, I grit my teeth in pain, brow furrowing in dark frustration.

"Well, I'm not family, so it'll be fine." The young man assures once more, offering a hand.

_No, my son… It never will…_

Realizing my slip, I look back at him.

"Your last name is Skywalker."

"Yeah. So?"

"Vader is not a true name…" I finally shake my head, amber eyes downcast now, as I watch the sands once more, a pool of darkness at my feet, "Tis but a title… My true name has long been buried… Considered dead, along with the rest of me.."

In the midst of my inner and constant pain, I notice him vaguely reaching towards me, as if to prevent me from drifting away on the breeze.

Looking up at him, my eyes flash a sad blue before I turn away, sand whipping up and obscuring me from view as I change. The air clears, and I turn back to him, though it is he who must look up now.

And what meets me… Is a look of pure amazement.

"Father?"

Offering a sad smile, I dip my head in confirmation.

"Yes, Luke... Anakin Skywalker, at your service."

My child only continues to stare, slowly shaking his head.

"I'm sorry it has to be this way," I sigh, sand lapping at my ankles on the breeze.

It is only now… Now, when he finally knows, that I feel the full weight of my failure.

My failure to protect… To love that which I sold my soul to protect.

"I can't believe you're alive…"

"That's one way of putting it," I smile weakly, nervous and uncertain in taking any action.

My son simply begins to tremble, meeting locking gazes, "I can't believe I thought you were a little kid…"

Blinking away a few stray tears before they can truly form, I take him by the shoulders.

"I am so sorry for all this deception and mind games, Luke…"

I know sorry will never be enough for what I've done..

"It's okay…" He protests weakly, before I pull him into a sporadic and desparate embrace…

"No," I mumble, holding him close and trying not to shake myself to pieces, "It's not... It never will be either…"

Throat tightening, Luke manages a small, broken smile, mirroring my own.

"Then let's pretend it is."


End file.
